Mothers-in-law have a difficult role

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33985, 28 October 1975, Page 4

Mothers-in-law have a difficult role

“My mother-in-law,| my mother-in-law, she’s i a noisy eater, a really; noisy eater — we took her to a restaurant the other day and when she started on the soup course six couples got up and did the tango."

The English mother-in-law has been the prime target and favourite subject of English stand-up comics for gen-i erations. That excellent dramatist, Colin Welland, took a swipe at her in his play, “Say Goodnight to vour Grandma,” screened on TVI on Sunday night. His attack made us a bit uneasy, since it did not seem to be much fairer than many of the mother-in-law jokes which have them spilling their ale in the Huddersfield Workingmen’s Club on a Saturday night. The difficulty faced by mothers-in-law is that they have to occupy three roles at the same time: a mother to their own child, a grandmother to its children and a mother-in-law to its spouse. One cannot blame mothers-in-law if they sometimes get the characteristics appropriate to these incompatible! roles a bit mixed up. Maude, the mother-in-lawi in “Say Goodnight to your: Grandma.” had not seen her! Ison, daughter - in -Jaw or[ :grandchild for three years.: I One could hardly be surprised if she got a bit over-! excited. But Colin Welland,! her creator, appeared to be; less understanding of her; than Colin Welland, her son: in the play. Welland’s plays are usuallyi more compassionate than i this and we can .only assume that he was working out some private frustration arising from his personal experience of mothers or mothers-in-law. Furthermore, we have: never liked Susan Jameson,l who played the daughter-in-! law. Her bulging eyes and} small, stubborn mouth ren-j der her physically incapable,: in our view, of playing a sympathetic character. Wei were therefore sorry to see| that her triumph over Maude! was. so complete.

These cavils aside, the play was full of typically accurate observation by Welland of the ordinary behaviour of ordinary people, and was distinguished by firstrate performances from him and Madge Ryan. « * *

“The Pallisers” continued to hold our attention, with Glencora’s rejection of Burgo, and George Vavasour coming Ito show himself in his true colours. There was even a horsewhipping, something we have always wanted to see, although to our great disappointment it did not take place on the steps of a club. | The problem that we can jsee looming up as far as sustained interest in “The j Pallisers” is concerned is the i character of Plantagenet. It lis very difficult to make an

(interesting character out of (a good person, particularly if that good person is extremely boring to start with, and Plantagenet behaves so (amazingly well about everything that he is in danger of becoming a pain in the neck. One can certainly understand Glencora’s desire from time to time to brain him with an ormolu clock, or stuff “The Times” down his throat and set fire to-it.

If we were Trollope, or Simon Raven who adapted the novels for television, we

iwould give Plantagenet ■ another side to his character, iWe would have him sneak off [Occasionally to a rendezvous in Soho, where ladies in furs and elaborate underwear would whip him because he was a naughty boy who hadn’t done his homework. The Simpson and Galton Comedy Playhouse, “Last Man on Earth,” was a disappointment. Despite brave little performances by Ronald Fraser and Dandy Nichols it was not very funny, and the weight of allegory and commentary that Simpson and Galton sought to rest on the frail underpinning of their script was quite inappropriate. It was as though they had placed a block on a meringue.

Musically, the evening was enjoyable, with a good rendering by Glenn Campbell of “Macarthur Park,” one of the more beautiful songs to emerge from the late Sixties, that strange and dramatic era of drugs, assassinations, student revolutions, Tet offensives and Wichita linemen. Later two beautiful arias were beautifully sung by beautiful Kiri Te Kanawa Miss Te Kanawa, God bless her, obviously sees nothing wrong with appearing as a sex object from time t.o time (it is strange, is it not, that those women who go on most about women being sex objects are usually themselves as sexually exciting as a plate of coleslaw?) and she wore a splendid, deeplyslashed dress which must have done more to promote opera than a decade of Arts Council grants. It certainly

I brought to operatic singing a dimension which Birgit Nilsson and Kirsten Flagstad were never able to add to it. — A.K.G.